"The Mass Observation Project (MOP) is a unique UK–based writing project which has been running since 1981. ... [it] differs from other similar social investigations because of its historical link to the original Mass Observation and because of its focus is on voluntary, self–motivated participation. It revives the early Mass Observation notion that everyone can participate in creating their own history or social science. The Mass Observers do not constitute a statistically representative sample of the population but can be seen as reporters or 'citizen journalists' who provide a window on their worlds.

The material is solicited in response to 'directives' or open–ended questions sent to them by post or email three times a year. The directives contain two or three broad themes which cover both very personal issues and wider political and social issues and events.

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"Aleks Krotoski asks not just what technology can do for us but also what is it doing to us and the world we're creating? Each week she takes us on a journey to where people are living their digital lives to explore how technology touches everything we do both on and offline.

Taking broad themes of modern living as a starting point she charts the experiences of homo digitas; both the remarkable and the mundane, to understand how we are changing just as quickly as the advances in our technology.

What does the deluge of images from digital photography mean for our memory when every second is being recorded, edited and posted online for posterity? Are the identities we create in social media no more than exercises in personal branding, to be managed and protected like any other product? And as traditional churches struggle to leverage technology to spread their faith do the behaviours we all display online have more in common with religion than rationality?

The time for wonder at the digital world is over, we live with it in every day. The question really is who are we now because of it?"

(BBC Radio 4)

Fig.1 "Mack on a summer morning", 30 March 2011 [http://www.mydogearedpages.com/2011/03/photographic–memories.html].

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"There are deep noises of gallops. The brown earth covering the floor reveals hundreds of tracks of wild animals in stampede. But instead, it is a set of dancers what appears on scene. Their presence is heavily felt through their turbulent footprints. The Rite of Spring is one of Pina Bausch's most celebrated choreographic pieces, included in the homage documentary PINA that Wim Wenders has just presented. A movie about the sign that her teachings on performative space left before her death in 2009: the Dance Theatre genre.

In her choreographies, earth is heavy. Flying dust materializes air. The void weighs. Water drops densify the emptiness. Living bodies become inert corpses. A closed–eyed dancer lets her mass fall down until the trust on her partner saves her from a mortal knock. Hands and feet become detachable prosthesis. The lightness of matter clashes over the presence of the ephemeral. Optical illusions...

In Choreographed Environments, Eva Pérez de Vega points out that 'considering immaterial effects in the production of a material practice, is not at all about ignoring the material per se. It refers more to the conception of a material production. It is about thinking how to make immaterial notions material; ultimately it is about creating material effects. [...] Architecture no longer consists of making building and Dance no longer consists of making dances. The hope is that as dancers continue to explore new territories as managers of space, architects too can conceive of space as managers of movement' (Eva Pérez de Vega, 2007, p.7).

For the movie, many pieces were performed again in unusual urban settings, such as inside and underneath Wuppertal's retrofuturistic sky–train, or inside other recent architectural iconic references (easy to guess!). Pina Bausch pioneered a strong performative approach to architecture and Wenders has made her pupils revive its immateriality in cult buildings for posterity: a clear effort to transmit Pina's philosophy of movement constructing space. Bravo!"